“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked hesitantly walking next to Aron as we headed for the village gate. It was Saturday morning and I had woken up with gloriously gleaming blue scales, without a trace of orange. Not giving me much time to bask in my own beauty, Aron had dragged me out of the Inn directly after breakfast.
“Yeah don’t worry its safe, the Orcs moved on days ago and the [Hunters] or [Guards] would stop us if there was anything dangerous in the area” he hummed as he trotted along.
I tried to think of a way to get out of this, both because I knew I couldn’t do magic so this would just be disappointing and also because I really did not want to set foot outside the village so soon after the Orc attack.
“What if some Orcs stayed behind?” I said a bit desperately.
He rolled his eyes “Orcs are always in tribes, where there’s one there’s many, they won't leave any behind, trust me, we’ll be fine”
I dragged my feet, slowing down the closer we got to the gate, Aron paused seeing I wasn’t completely level with him anymore “Hey I’m you’re big brother, I’ll protect you if any Orcs come” he grinned as he made fists and held them in front of him in a mock boxer’s stance.
I smiled weakly, it was adorable to see him try to be tough, but an Orc would flatten him without even trying “Sure, but lets try to not run into any Orcs” and if we did, I’d distract them somehow and protect Aron. I couldn’t let him die. I pushed the image of the dead boy away, feeling a bit queasy again. Steeling myself I swallowed and walked forwards; I couldn’t sit and hide in the village forever.
“Yeah lets go, we can head to the river so if you set anything on fire, we can put it out quickly” he said enthusiastically jumping forwards. I sighed, there wasn’t going to be a fire or anything magic but no matter what I said, Aron wanted to try and make me remember how to use magic.
Coming up to the gate, a familiar figure waved at us “Hey kiddos” Dante jogged over to us smiling. I almost missed a step seeing him with two perfectly functioning arms.
“Your arm, its…” I trailed off, that had been a debilitating injury; I had seen the shattered bone and torn flesh, that wasn’t something that could be fixed so easily.
“Yeah I know, the healers did a really good job, probably would have lost the arm otherwise” he looked at his arm flexing it back and forth “Just a bit stiff now, but otherwise back to normal.” Carston had only had his forearm broken and he’d still turned up to school with a sling, but Dante’s arm had been destroyed, mangled with bone slinters and flesh ripped asunder so how the hell did healers do just ‘a good job’. That was an insane display of medical ability.
“Glad to see you’re ok though kid” he patted me on the head and I flushed red scrambling back trying to bat his hand away. I scowled up at him, I hated being called kid, but he just laughed and turned to Aron bending down to sling an arm around his shoulders “So buddy, I hear you did an apprenticeship with Tycel, did she ever mention me?”
I rolled my eyes and Aron just looked confused “Are you an [Enchanter] too?”
“No, just did she mention if there’s anyone she likes?” he asked lightly.
“Oh, well she likes me, that’s why she’s giving me a discount for a Lute” he grinned at Dante confidently who just looked at him deadpan “Right ok kid, never mind” he straightened letting go of Aron who frowned a bit bewildered.
“Well if you kids are heading out try not to stray too far, it should be safe, but you never know”
“Yeah we’re just going down to the river” Aron replied cheerfully. Dante nodded and looked ready to head back to his post before I interrupted.
“Thank you” I flushed a bit “For saving my life I mean” shifting uncomfortably, he’d only had his arm almost torn off because he’d pushed me down. I knew that wasn’t my fault, but I still felt a bit guilty that he’d gotten injured protecting me.
His expression softened a bit “Sure thing kid” he a reached forwards to pat me on the head again and winked “Besides, protecting people is a great was to level as a [Guard], also if you could put in a word about my heroics to Tycel-“ he yelped loudly as I stomped on his foot glaring at him. I turned my head up and looked away in a huff, to think I’d been impressed by him, he was just a dumb boy bragging to show off.
“Ungrateful brat” I could hear him muttering as he glowered at me clutching his foot. I had a flash back of him straining not to scream when the archer bound his arm, he hadn’t panicked or cried out then. I got angrier realising he was putting on an act hopping on one foot pretending I’d managed to hurt him.
I grit my teeth in frustration, clenching my fists; I hated being treated like a child, even if he was trying to be nice goofing off with us kids, it was a stark reminder of my own weakness. As much as I disliked admitting it, he was impressive, I wasn’t sure I could have remained calm after having my arm almost blown off, but he didn’t take me seriously and that hurt me more than I expected.
I angrily stomped off towards the gate determined to ignore him, tail lashing side to side in sharp movements. I could hear footsteps on the ground running to catch up and Aron appeared at my side, head turned as he waved in Dante’s direction.
“Hey what did Dante mean about Tycel?” Aron asked questioningly when he turned back to me. I shrugged; I was not having that talk with him “I don’t know, maybe he wants to be friends with her”
Aron started answering when he broke off and looked up to see him staring raptly at the gatehouse. I followed his gaze to see the enormous Minotaur from last time coming out; he had to duck to fit through the door and his battle-axe was strapped to his back, but that’s not what caught Aron’s attention. Following him was a familiar smaller Minotaur boy with stubby bumps instead of horns with an intense look of concentration on his long face as he nodded listening to Rudy.
Kaid’s big brown eyes flicked over to Aron and I could see him almost stumble, a flash of guilt in his wide eyes as his floppy ears dropped a fraction, before he fixed his attention back on Rudy steadfastly ignoring Aron. Aron quickly looked away the moment Kaid had glanced over and marched forwards. It seemed like they were both going to pretend they couldn’t see each other.
I gave Kaid the stink eye as we walked past, I wasn’t going to get involved if Aron was going for the ‘pretend he doesn’t exist’ route, but I’d make my displeasure at his existence known. Rudy on the other hand, hadn’t gotten the memo.
“Hey Aron, haven’t seen you around at the house lately, you heading out? Why don’t you bring Kaid, he can skip training for one day, kids need to have fun too” he smiled broadly as he clamped a hand on Kaid’s shoulder and I could almost taste the awkwardness in the air as both Aron and Kaid stiffened and seemed to be suppressing identical looks of panic.
“Ugh dad training is import-“
“I’m just showing Sasha arou-“
They both paused as they spoke simultaneously, looking at each other uncomfortably. Kaid was shifting from leg to leg and looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him up as Rudy frowned “Something going on here?”
“No its just that its a family outing, I’m showing Sasha around. Besides training is really important, with Kaid being an important [Warrior] and all now” Aron met Rudy’s eyes and I could see Kaid flinch and his ears dropped further. Rudy’s frown deepened and he looked ready to say something but I jumped in.
“We have to go to work later so we only have a short time to have a look around now so Kaid should train otherwise we’d have to ditch him pretty soon and he’d be left alone”
Kaid flinched slightly and Rudy surveyed us displeased but Kaid intervened before he could say anything else “Yeah, I really should train, you were going to help me with stances for a battle-axe right dad”
Rudy’s ear twitched as he frowned unhappily blowing hot air out of his large nostrils, somehow I expected him to have a thick bull’s nose ring but he didn’t, that would be ridiculous. He was trying to work out what was wrong looking back and forth between us, but if I had to guess, social finesse wasn’t his strong suit.
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“Alright” the massive Minotaur agreed eventually and both Aron and Kaid relaxed a bit “But come by sometime Aron, its been quieter without you and Kaid running around”
“Sure uncle Rudy” Aron complied with a forced smile “Uh see you around” he waved uncomfortably and Kaid hesitated and gave a nervous wave back before Aron walked off quickly and I followed closely behind.
Finally exhaling and slowing down when we were a decent distance away from the gate, Aron paused and looked back before looking forward at the worn road again determined. Tall grass rising up on either side, green in some areas, but the straw colouring of dried grass creeping in. It was tall enough to hide an Orc and all my nervousness rushed back and butterflies filled my stomach as I quickly activated [Battle sense].
No red blobs of hidden Orcs, just the gently windblown grass turning a shade of blue. Relieved I exhaled, legs a bit weak as the adrenaline rush calmed.
“So do you want to talk about it?” I asked Aron cautiously.
“No, Kaids a jerk and I don’t want anything to do with him, he’s just stupid, dumb, idiot-“ he broke off and I could see water welling up in his eyes as he angrily kicked at clumps of dirt on the ground as we walked. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and walked forwards refusing to look back, head held high and I pretended I hadn’t seen the tears.
“Yeah he is” I said, mentally scrambling for a topic of conversation that would cheer him up or at least distract him as tense silence stretched between us.
“So how do you want to practice magic then?” I tried asking casually as we walked down the road. Even though the grass was too tall for me to see over, I could still see the mounds of hills dotted around and the sound of slow running water was getting louder.
“I’m not sure, I asked a [Mage] that came to the village once and she just said ‘feel and direct the mana inside you’ but I’m not really sure what that means. She just got annoyed when I asked her to explain. Said if I wanted to be [Mage] I should save up to go to an academy in the city,” he said thoughtfully. Somehow I doubted that the [Mage] had been too friendly when pestered by village children on how to perform magic.
“Alright, any ideas on how to do that?” I asked glad he seemed to move on from the Kaid business.
“Well most magic users have staffs or wands or something right, so maybe we should get some,” he said getting excited.
I looked him doubtfully “And where do you propose we get magic sticks from?”
“We can just get branches from a tree” he shrugged grinning, “I mean it can’t be that different to a [Mage's] staff”
I scrutinised him doubtfully, I’d never seen a real wand or staff before, but I was willing to bet they weren’t just normal sticks, some magic shenanigans had to be going on there “You think that’s going to work?”
“Sure why not, just got to direct the mana you know” he got into an exaggerated fencer’s stance and waved a pretend wand around “Just like bam and kapow, fire and lightning, boom”
I sighed, watching him I was getting less and less optimistic about this and I already knew that it wasn’t going to work “Ok lets get some sticks then” better to get this over with.
He stopped swinging his arm around and grinned running into the tall grass, straight for a lone tall tree whose branches swayed in the breeze. I panicked briefly, what if there was an Orc I couldn’t see, he wasn’t exactly being quiet trampling the grass.
Not wanting to be left alone on the road I ran after him, somehow the idyllic grasslands seemed more sinister as the gently swaying stalks of grass swallowed me up, rising above my head and partly bouncing back up behind me, obscuring the view to the road. My heart beat faster as I raced after Aron, picking up speed; I hadn’t felt this way last time I’d been here, but back then I hadn’t known an Orc could hide in plain sight here.
I followed his trail and broke through to the clearing around the tree, where Aron was standing trying to rip twigs off a long branch. The grass under the tree was significantly shorter and suddenly it seemed a lot less threatening out here. I swallowed looking behind me but Aron seemed completely at ease and I hadn’t seen any red in the grass so I approached trying to breath quietly as my heart rate slowed.
Aron threw the branch he was holding at me and I fumbled to catch it while he jumped up and caught a low hanging branch and proceeded to snap off a segment roughly 1.5m long like the one he’d given me. He let go and the branch shot up rebounding in the air a couple of times before settling down.
“Lets go to the river, just in case we set something on fire” he said excitedly as he stripped the bark, twigs and leaves from his branch. I rolled my eyes and followed him through the grass, picking at the bark remnants on my branch. The tall grass seemed less intimidating as he chatted cheerfully at my side while I periodically scanned around for anything red.
The rushing sound of water gradually got louder and I was glad Aron knew where we were going since it just looked like a lot of grass with some trees and hills to me. Not many defining landmarks to use as reference points, though I suppose after living here a while you’d recognise individual trees and stuff to find your way around.
The grass changed to reeds and abruptly we burst out into the rivers edge. It wasn’t very deep, probably thigh high at the deepest if I had to guess, but fairly wide with long shallow stretches as it slowly meandered through the grasslands. The riverbed was predominantly pebbled and looking further up I could see an old stone bridge crossing the river where the road presumably was. Some type of ducks and other birds were swimming and wandering around by the river with frogs and fish occasionally making their existence known.
There was a slight rushing sound coming from a short way down the river from a waterfall, though it was probably only 1m tall and the river flowed slowly enough that the baby ducklings had no trouble resisting the water’s flow. Aron hiked up his trousers to his knees and took off his boots and socks, leaving them on a small round boulder at the river’s edge before wading into the water barefoot with his branch.
I hesitated and scowled at the water, even with the sun rising overhead warming the air to a pleasant temperature, the water would be colder. Aron stopped and turned ankle deep “Come on, not scared of getting a bit wet are you?” he grinned, sunlight reflecting off his tousled brown hair.
“I’m not scared” I glared at him and yanked my boots off; I just didn’t want to be cold. I hesitated briefly standing up with my trousers up to my knees before dipping a clawed toe into the water and jerking back, it was cold just like I’d thought. I didn’t mind the water but I was really developing a dislike for the cold, steeling myself I plunged my foot into the water.
I yelped as the cold shot up my leg and I jumped forwards, landing with both feet in the water and I ran forwards to catch up with Aron trying to lift my feet high keeping them out of the water for as long as possible.
Aron was laughing when I reached him “You look so stupid” he giggled as I stood next to him sourly trying to ignore the cold seeping through my scales into my feet.
“Are we doing this or not?” I scowled at him lifting my branch as he clamed himself grinning at me “Sure sure” he lifted his branch as well and we both stood there thinking about what to do.
“So how are we supposed to feel and direct mana?” I asked glancing at him next to me.
“Maybe like this” he took a deep breath, a look of concentration filled his face and he wildly swung his branch forward yelling “Fireball!”
A gentle breeze rustled some reeds but otherwise nothing happened, the ducks didn’t look too impressed “hmm” he straightened contemplating his stick.
“Do [Mages] yell out the names of their spells? And really swing their staffs around like that?” I asked sceptically.
He scowled at me, “If you think you can do better, why don’t you do it?” irritated I snorted and ignored him, lifting my branch. Closing my eyes, I focused inside myself, trying to ‘feel my mana’, it was like meditation, but I couldn’t really feel anything special. I wasn’t just going to stand there all day so I tried pushing imaginary mana through my arm and into the branch before swiping it forwards and opening my eyes, part of me hoping something would happen.
A small ripple appeared on the waters surface ahead of me and my eyes widened; I’d done it. Magic. “I did it, did you see that” I pointed at the fading ripple as I jumped up and down excitedly, looking at Aron for confirmation.
“Are you stupid, that was just a fish coming up to eat a bug”
“Was not” I stopped jumping and glared at him.
“Was too” he glared back at me.
“No I did it, I did magic”
“Oh yeah, then do it again” he dared me.
I scowled at him “I will”
I turned back to the river and settled into my stance from before, a nervous buzz in my stomach. I closed my eyes trying to ignore Aron’s negative attitude. I tried doing the same thing pretending to force something along my arm and into the branch and swung it. I opened eyes; there was no ripple in the water this time.
“See told you, just a fish, not magic” Aron said smugly.
“I just didn’t do it right that time” I scowled glaring at him, frustrated, part of me had really wanted to believe I could do magic.
“Oh yeah, did your mana go down at all?”
I paused, that was actually a good idea and I checked my status, hoping that it had dipped proving I’d somehow tapped into that resource. It was still at 100% and I moved my jaw, finding it hard to admit I’d been wrong.
“Didn’t change did it” Aron gloated and I kicked water at him “Well not like you managed it either stupid”
He blinked as the low splash caught his legs before springing into action and splashing water at me in retaliation. I yelped moving back as the cold water drenched me, but he followed, leaning over to scoop water up and throw it at me between kicking water as high as he could.
I scrambled back almost completely soaked trying to get out of his splashing range before giving up and counter attacking. I dropped my stick at some point and copied Aron trying o scoop water up and throwing it at him catching him right in the face as he was bending over.
He scrambled backwards, slipping and landing on his butt, waist deep in water and I seized the advantage hitting the surface of the water for the maximum splash factor. He blindly reached out with one hand, the other shielding his face and he grabbed my wrist pulling me down into the cold water while I screeched loudly trying to get up, my wings bursting out of my clothes to help balance myself, but he held on and I slipped falling completely into the water.
Eyes squinting through the water I wrestled blindly with Aorn, both of us on our knees in the water sloshing around trying to push the other under and escape, when a searing pain erupted in my left wing and I let out a blood curdling scream.
Jerking back from Aron I twisted to look at my wing. Uncomprehendingly I gaped at the profusely bleeding hole ripped through the taut leathery breadth of it. A splash and thud in the water next to me indicated a second arrow landing and I spun to look across the river.
A lanky dark haired boy in light leather armour threw a bow aside and pulled out a long dagger. He started to charge across the river, splashing water loudly and I fell backwards in shock clutching my left arm near the damaged wing. A jittery smile tugging at his lips, but there was an unnerving excited glint in his pale blue eyes as he fixated on me.